"I am still alive !" — Gaius Caligula (12-41 AD), Roman Emperor, after being stabbed to death by his own guards.

"Dear me, I believe I am becoming a god. An emperor ought at least to die on his feet." — Vespasian (9-79 AD), Roman emperor.

"I have made but one mistake." — Titus (39-81 AD), Roman emperor.

"How the little piglets would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered." — Ragnar Lodbrok, (?-c865) norse hero, after being thrown into a snake pit, about how his sons would avenge him.

Dark Ages

So dark indeed that they couldn't even write them down...

16th century

"I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven." — Pietro Perugino (1446—1523), Italian painter. Giving his reasons for refusing to see a priest as he lay dying.

"The king has been very good to me. He promoted me from a simple maid to be a marchioness. Then he raised me to be a queen. Now he will raise me to be a martyr." — Anne Boleyn (1507-36), second wife of Henry VIII.

"The executioner is, I believe, very expert, and my neck is very slender." — Anne Boleyn (1507-36).

"I have passed in ease and prosperity and in a state of pleasure such has been the lot of no monarch." — Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din Khilji (15th century), who had 15000 wives and concubines.

"I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor." — François Rabelais (1483—1553), French satirist.

"You pronounce sentence upon me with greater fear than I receive it." — Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), to his inquisitors before being burned at the stake.

17th century

"May I not seem to have lived in vain." — Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), danish astronomer.

"I have a long journey to take, and must bid the company farewell." — Lord Walter Raleigh (1554—1618), English explorer.

"This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries." — Walter Raleigh (1554—1618), upon seeing the axe that would behead him.

"I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair." — John Quincy Adams (1767—1848), Sixth president of the USA. Said during his last illness.

"The earth is suffocating... Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive." — Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), polish composer and pianist.

"God will pardon me. It is His trade." — Heinrich Heine (1797—1856), German poet and writer.

"I did not know that we had ever quarreled." — Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), US writer. On being urged to make his peace with God.

"Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." — John Sedgwick (1813-64), US general. In response to a suggestion that he should not show himself over the parapet during the Battle of the Wilderness.

"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68), Spanish general and political leader. Said on his deathbed, when asked by a priest if he forgave his enemies.

"No, it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert." — Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), British statesman. On his deathbed, declining an offer of a visit from Queen Victoria.

"I think you're right, Wyatt. I can't see a God damn thing. " — Morgan Earp (1851-1882), accepting his brother's belief that there is no life after Death.

"I am a Queen, but I have not the power to move my arms." — Louise of Russia.

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." — Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), Irish-born British dramatist. As he lay dying in a drab Paris bedroom.

"I expect I shall have to die beyond my means." — Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), Irish-born British dramatist. On accepting a glass of champagne on his deathbed.

20th century

"On the contrary !" — Henrik Ibsen (1828—1906), Norwegian dramatist. His nurse had just remarked that he was feeling a little better.

"Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six." — Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910), Russian writer. Refusing to reconcile himself with the Russian Orthodox Church as he lay dying.

"Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark." — O. Henry (William Sidney Porter; 1862-1910), US short-story writer.

"I am just going outside and may be some time." — Captain Lawrence Oates (1880—1912), British soldier and explorer. Before leaving the tent and vanishing into the blizzard on the ill-fated Antarctic expedition (1910-12). Oates was afraid that his lameness would slow down the others.

"We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have come out against us. We have no cause for complaint." — Scott (1868—1912), found in his diary after his party froze in Antarctica.

"People should be aware of the dangers of killing themselves." — Read in the 'letters to the editor' column of TIME in response to an article on teen suicide.

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale." — Scott (1868—1912), Message to the Public.

"Why fear death ? It is the most beautiful adventure in life." — Charles Frohman (1860—1915), US theater producer. Said before going down with the liner Lusitania, alluding to 'To die will be an awfully big adventure' from Barrie's Peter Pan, which Frohman had produced.

"Kaputt..." — Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918), the Red Baron, german fighter pilot, after landing his plane with a gunshot wound.

"Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way." — Erskine Childers (1870—1922), British-born author and Irish patriot. Last words before being executed by firing squad, 24 Nov 1922.

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something..." — Pancho Villa (1877—1923) clutching a comrade after being shot.

"If this is dying, I don't think much of it." — Lytton Strachey (1880—1932), British writer.

"When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafey trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and cold hearted than you are now." — Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), American poet, suicide note.

"I'm glad it was me and not you, Mr. President." — Anton Cermak (1873-1933) after being shot in place of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

"You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it. Oh, Oh, dog Biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn't get snappy." — Dutch Schultz (1902-1935), american gangster, hallucinating after being shot.

"When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one." — Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), writer, suicide note.

"Ich kann nicht mehr (I can do no more)." — Toni Kurz (1913-1936), while within touching distance of the rescue team, north face of Eiger.

"All fled — all done, so lift me on the pyre; The feast is over, and the lamps expire." — Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), writer, suicide note.

"I have a feeling I shall go mad. I cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I shan't recover this time. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot fight any longer." — Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), British author, suicide note.

"Die ? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." — John Barrymore (1882—1942), US actor.

"To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe." — Lupe Velez (1908-1944), mexican actress, suicide note.

"How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper ? French fries." — James French, executed in electric chair in Oklahoma, 1966.

"To leave this life, to me, is a sweet prospect. When you read this I will be quite dead and no answer will be possible. All I can say is that I offered you love, and the best I could. All I got in return in the end was a kick in the teeth. Thus I die alone and unloved. As you sowed, so shall you reap." — David Ferrie (1918-1967), pilot, suicide note.

"Oh, shit !" — Jim Madsen ( -1968), when rappelling off the end of his rope on El Cap's Dihedral Wall.

"Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool — good luck." — George Sanders (1906-1972), actor, suicide note.

"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." — Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), german physicist, on his deathbed.

"I must end it. There's no hope left. I'll be at peace. No one had anything to do with this. My decision totally." — Freddie Prinze (1954-1977), comedian, suicide note.

"Let's do it !" — Gary Gilmore (1940-1977), US murderer, in front of firing squad.

"Damn it... Don't you dare ask God to help me." — Joan Crawford (1904-1977), actress, to her housekeeper who had begun to pray aloud.

"I'd like to thank my family for loving me and taking care of me. And the rest of the world can kiss my ass." — Johnny Frank Garrett, executed by injection, 1992.

"You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper." — Robert Alton Harris, executed in California's gas chamber, 1992.

"Remember, the death penalty is murder." — Robert Drew, executed on August 2, 1994.

"I had you all going, didn't I ?" — Lt. Col. Kenneth Wilson ( -1994), about his 1912 photograph of the Loch Ness monster.

"Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your altar. Please keep going Courtney, for Frances for her life will be so much happier without me. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU." — Kurt Cobain (1967-1994), singer, suicide note.

"I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this." — Thomas J. Grasso, executed 1995.

"And now, in keeping with Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the latest in blood and guts, in living color, you're about to see another first — an attempted suicide." — Chris Chubbuck, newscaster who shot herself during broadcast.

"For almost nine years I have thought about the death penalty, whether it is right or wrong, and I don't have any answers. But I don't think the world will be a better or safer place without me. If you had wanted to punish me you would have killed me the day after, instead of killing me now. You are not hurting me now. I have had time to get ready, to tell my family goodbye, to get my life where it needed to be." — Last statement of Jeffery Doughtie, executed in 2001.

"Hey guys, watch this !" — Todd Poller (-2001), who tried to swallow a live perch.

"And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say: 'Kurt is up in heaven now'. That's my favorite joke." — Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), science-fiction author.